Saturday, December 31, 2011

As I mentioned earlier, I joined the SAL at Heaven and Earth Designs to get motivated on my SK Forest Walk that had been abandoned. The project I chose for the SAL was QS Faerie Bride Artwork by Amy Brown - this is a cropped version of the larger project found at the Heaven and Earth website.

Fabric: 28 ct Meditation by Picture This Plus

Threads: DMC (88 colors)

Stitch Count: 185W x 191H stitched 1 over 1, full cross

Progress this year: 8790 stitches

I plan to continue working on this throughout 2012 - although my main focus will be on the new SAL piece that I'm starting tonight. It's called SK Forbidden Doorway - and I hope to have a picture of it's start sometime next week.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Here is one of my ongoing Heaven and Earth Designs. It is called Storykeep Forest Walk Artwork by Anne Stokes. I started at the bottom left for this one, back in December 2009. I abandoned it after just a few weeks because I thought there was too much black in the design - my picture showed a lot more dark green. I picked it up again,almost a year later and put it aside in less than a month. Wanting to finish this piece, this past year I joined the HAED SALs just to see if I could figure out what was wrong. After seeing such wonderful results with the SAL, I brought this out of my pile and began working on it again. Here is my progress as of today. Completed 6750 stitches .

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

My secret Santa was Jennifer. She did an amazing job spoiling me with all these goodies, all beautifully wrapped. I just love the snowman she made for me. He is hanging from my mantle for everyone to see.

Here's a closeup of the snowman:

My partner was Catherine from Bramblewood Stitches . I dug out my older Just Cross Stitch Ornament magazines, and stitched this pretty from Eileen J. Bennett of the Sampler House. This was the third Stitched With Love Exchange that I participated in this year.

I'm truly thankful for the new friends I have made. I can't wait to see what Lainey & Colleen come up with for next year.

Living in the Northeastern US, we have four distinct seasons to enjoy. We usually see the first snowfall in October- it doesn't usually stay, but, it does give us a taste of what's to come. Our snowfall usually goes away sometime in April with the spring rains and warmer temperatures. About 2 weeks later, the black flies show up. These little insects continue to annoy and bite throughout the summer and into autumn dwindling in size until they get to the no see-ums stage. Summer is warm enough that we have our windows open, which allows these pesky biters the opportunity to sneak through the screens and feast. Summer also brings a flare-up of other allergies. I look forward to autumn which brings the beautiful colors and the first frosts of winter, which bring the end of the insect bites and a break in my allergies. So that is how I came to choose black flies and snow flies for my blog name.

And since there are a few snowflakes in the air, I thought I'd share this finish.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

In spring of 1981, my high school french class had a trip to France. We saw so much on that trip. Amazing architecture of the cathedrals with beautiful stained glass windows, flying buttresses, and so many intricate sculpted designs inset in the faces of the buildings. We also visited several of the vineyards, and finished up our trip with a week in Paris. When I saw this design, I knew that I had to stitch it as it brought back so many wonderful memories. Somewhere in my slides from that trip I have some lovely scenic views from the observation tower.

I always wanted to try out my HDF Silks... and this was just the perfect project. I changed out the green fabric for a soft gray, and stitched this 1 over 1 using HDF Dragonheart & White. Hope to find some time after Christmas to "finish" this.